Hwange National Park

Hwange, one of the world's last great Elephant sanctuaries, is the largest national park in Zimbabwe

Elephants at Ngweshla Pan during the dry season. During a 24hr period, we saw more than 1000 Elephant coming to drink
and wallow

Covering more than 14,600 square kilometers(5,863 square miles)
or 1,460,000 hectares it has more animals and a greater variety of species -107- than any other park in the country, and more than 400 species of
birds.

Hwange Climate

Winter Months - Mid
May, June, July, early August, although the days are warm with
beautiful blue skies, the evenings can get extremely cold and
temperatures below freezing are not uncommon, so definitely bring
warm clothing. It's cold I promise you!

Summer months - September through to May. Hot to extremely hot
days and warm evenings.

Rainy season - Generally between late November and
April although the occasional rain can occur out of these dates.

Best Game Viewing Months

August, September, October and early November are
by far the best months for game viewing in this park. Water becomes
extremely scarce and the animals congregate around the few pumped
waterholes.
Sitting patiently and quietly at one of these water holes will
reward you with very good game viewing.

During the rainy season from late November
through to April, a completely different park emerges to
that of the dry season. Parched savannahs turn into lush
fields with an abundance of grazing. The animals disperse
and game viewing becomes limited. It's called the green
season and has it's own magic as this is when the park and
all the animals rejuvenate themselves, feeding like crazy on
the abundance of food. Newly born animals can be seen
everywhere and the birdlife is absolutely prolific.

There are two distinct geographic zones, neither are able to support viable
agriculture. The flora of the well drained northern area, part of the
Zambezi watershed, is dominated by mopane and mixed terminalia, which is distinctly
different from the rest.

Elsewhere the Kalahari scrublands, covered with stunted, scattered woodlands
of teak and umtshibi trees, drain into Botswana's Makgadikgadi Depression. This
habitat is characterised by marshy depressions, vleis and fragile open
grasslands on shallow soils.

In the nineteen century this land was the royal hunting reserve of Mzilikazi
and his successor Lobengula. But the arrival of the first white hunters and
settlers signalled the slaughter of its wildlife by the thousands. As their
blood soaked deep into the sparse soils, it left empty, useless wasteland,
denuded of wildlife, unfit for farming.

It was declared a game reserve in 1928 and with neighbouring Robins Game
sanctuary, became a national park under he National Park Act of 1949. Originally,
Robins Game sanctuary belonged to H G Robins, a cattle rancher.

Male Lions Cecil and his brother Jericho photographed near to Ngweshla Camp in Hwange National Park

Because his herds were constantly under attack by lion and leopard, Robins turned the ranch into a wildlife preserve. Later in exchange for a new house and a water supply he gave the sanctuary to the government.

When founding member Ted Davidson walked across virtually every square
kilometre in 1928-29 he discovered the wildlife was almost non existent. The
once teeming herds of elephant numbered fewer than 1000 and the rhinoceros, both
black and white had been exterminated.

Anyway, the poorly drained Kalahari sands, with their relatively low
rainfall, were unable to support permanent large wildlife populations. The
seasonal pans and fossil river lines held water all too briefly after the rains,
and only occasionally did any large numbers migrate into the region.

Davidson perceived that the water was the critical key and in the years that
followed he drilled boreholes to create sixty new pans, linked to the seasonal
pans that already existed. slowly the animals particularly the elephant and
buffalo, began to move back.

Close to half a century later, Hwange National Park faced another, different crisis - too
many elephant. Their numbers had risen to more than 20 000 and in their wake the
massive beasts left fallen trees and fragile, over grazed grasslands. Hwange's
existence was threatened.

Wildlife authorities intervened, culling at least 5000 elephant to bring the
population down to between 12 000 and 15 000. The maximum that Hwange National
Park can
support without damage.

In 2010, the numbers had again grown considerably and it is then
estimated that the elephant population was somewhere between 30 000 to 40 000
animals. In mid 2017, the numbers had risen to 45 000.

This is critical and damage to the environment is certain as the park is only
able to sustain 10 000 African elephants. It remains
to be seen what the Zimbabwe National Parks does to alleviate this inevitable
problem.

Water remains the single most important management factor in Hwange's
continued existence - absolutely vital to the survival of what is perhaps
Africa's single largest concentration of elephant.

The constant maintenance of the artificial but natural looking water pans,
complete with resident hippo's and crocodile, has been a major factor sustaining
this ecological treasury. Without them, Hwange National Park would return to the empty
wasteland it once was, animals would die in their thousands.

Government funding has long since run out for this maintenance and the onus
has now fallen upon a few individual organisations, like "Friends of Hwange" and
"Save Hwange" who's efforts are to be highly commended.

National parks have several good self catering
camps and facilities. The 3 major National Parks camps are Main Camp, Sinamatella
and Robins camp - here you will find lodges, chalets and camping.
Visit the National Parks website for full details.

There are also Commercial Safari Lodges. These companies offer high
quality accommodation and hospitality. Please refer to our in-depth
page on
Hwange accommodation.

You will also find lots of discussions on Hwange
on this SA 4x4 Forum
which can be useful when planning your trip.

Thanks to those for your kind donations. See where the money has gone.

Hi Tony and Boo,
As you can see I spent the money that your website kindly donated in part payment of two pumps for Hwange. I had an urgent request for a pump for Jambile and will be sending them to the Park on Saturday. Once again I thank you very much for your kind donation and hope that you agree with the way I spent it.
Kind regards
John.

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